Run to Me

In Hester’s solid first novel, a psychological thriller, Shyler, who suffers from untreated PTSD, has retreated to remote Deadwater, Maine, traumatized by a confrontation with five robbers on a bridge that resulted in the death of her five-year-old son, Jesse. Two years after that tragedy, 10-year-old Zach arrives at Shyler’s door. Zach, a streetwise orphan fleeing ruthless gangsters determined to silence him because he was an unwitting eyewitness to a recent crime, seizes the chance of salvation that Shyler presents, despite her disturbing insistence on calling him Jesse. The author makes good use of her rustic setting and clearly understands the value of sympathetic protagonists and the thrill of narrow escapes, though the frequency with which Shyler and Zach confound their pursuers does raise serious questions about the competence of the crooks. (Apr.)